


All the Streets Are Empty (and the Cars on Fire)

by vailkagami



Series: Great Blue World [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Gen, References to Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, dean does not acctually appear in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vailkagami/pseuds/vailkagami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU after 5.18: When they go to confront Michael, Sam takes Dean along to give him the chance not to say yes - but Dean does. Now Michael is unleashed on the world, leaving a trail of destruction as he waits for his brother to take his destined vessel and face him in their final fight.<br/>Castiel wakes up without his grace in a world waiting for obliteration. Through the collapsing civilization he makes his way to Bobby's salvage yard where Sam still refuses to give in to Lucifer, no matter how much it hurts. Now it's up to them to save Dean and save the world from Dean's mistake - but the road is much, much longer than any of them anticipates, and every little victory comes with a price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to [And this Great Blue World of Ours](http://vail-kagami.dreamwidth.org/882.html). Can be read independently, but the sequel is needed for those who require closue.
> 
> Special thanks go to [jonjokeat](http://jonjokeat.livejournal.com), for her quick and very thourough beta job, and to [mamapranayama](http://mamapranayama.livejournal.com) who jumped in with some truely amazing [artwork](http://mamapranayama.livejournal.com/49546.html) late in the game after my original artist had to drop out due to technical difficulties.

Waking up was unexpected, unfamiliar, and almost unwelcome.

Castiel first opened his eyes on water. There was hard metal beneath him, nothing but the sky above, looking stormy and slightly blurred, and he heard voices, human voices speaking words that made no sense. He knew he was on water because the air smelled of salt and he heard the waves, felt the movement of the floor, and because he just knew it. He also was wet, cold, tasted salt on his tongue and felt a desire to drink something, anything. His head hurt badly. This was the unfamiliar part. As an angel in a borrowed shape, he was not used to this kind of discomfort.

Moving was too much of an effort so he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to drift away.

 

-

 

He woke up again. This time it was less surprising, but no less painful, and the realisation came slowly of what he had lost. What he had given up.

And that it hadn’t been worth it.

He woke in a hospital, alone. It didn’t take long for someone to show up, though – a stranger with a white coat, a doctor. Castiel had been lucky, he was told. They found him drifting in the water, bleeding, with torn clothes. The police would be here soon, because he had been attacked and they wanted to find out who did it. Castiel told him he didn’t remember. Said he was Castiel when asked for his name but claimed not to know anything beyond that. Telling this man he was an angel would have been unwise, he knew. And he didn’t know if he even was an angel anymore.

He didn’t feel like an angel.

The doctor didn’t believe him. Maybe amnesic people were more confused, less calm. Castiel was a bad actor, though, so he didn’t try to pretend. The doctor left him alone anyway. He was a busy man and the police was supposed to take care of this.

Castiel reached for the phone beside the bed and called Dean.

 

-

 

He’d known he would not get an answer; maybe it was a masochistic, self-punishing impulse that made him call the number he memorized long ago and listen to the line of signals that ended with Dean’s voice telling him to leave a message. He didn’t.

 

-

 

Calling Sam would have been the next logical step. Castiel pushed it off until after the policemen came and left frustrated and irritated, and then it was late and he was supposed to sleep. He didn’t have a name or insurance information or money, so he understood that he would have to leave soon, and Sam was the only person he knew, and there was only one place where he could go. He’d need money to get there, so he had to call Sam, but he did not want to. Not yet.

There was a small television in the corner of the room and Castiel watched the news until the report came in about the city of Los Angeles having been destroyed by a weapon of unknown origin and nature. People were speaking of something called a hydrogen bomb. There was panic spreading quickly through the hospital even though Los Angeles was far away.

Castiel left the room and the hospital before the first reporter stopped speaking. When he tried to reach Sam from a public phone with money he found on the sidewalk, all lines were blocked.

 

-

 

Getting to South Dakota was hard. There were still planes going back and forth across the United States by the time Castiel started on his way, but they were fewer in number and Castiel had no money. He had never really needed any before, had always been in the company of Dean when it was used, but now he found that it truly was a necessity. He was hungry – an unfamiliar feeling, not at all like the craving for red meat that had come over him in the presence of Famine – but had no means of getting food. He was tired but had no place to sleep. He needed to travel a long way and had no means of transportation.

Flying was not an option. He couldn’t fly anymore. He had truly fallen from grace.

But he was not human, would never be because he had never been. He was a fallen angel. His strength was still greater than a human’s. His senses were sharper, and while he felt exhaustion and pain after his unobserved departure from the hospital, he could ignore them easily and go without rest for a long time. Though he felt hunger, it remained a background noise, information his body gave him about a need he could ignore for days before it became hard to bear.

Since he could not fly, he walked. After a while, a car stopped and the driver offered to take him along for a while. He even gave Castiel a beer and a sandwich. It stilled his needs and he allowed his body to rest until the driver could take him no further. After they parted ways, Castiel continued walking along the highway until another car stopped. Like this, he slowly made his way towards the only place he knew where to go.

 

-

 

On the second day of his journey, he passed Topeka, riding in the passenger seat of a truck driven by a silent, grim woman. She didn’t ask him where he was going or why. She didn’t say much at all, focusing all her attention on the road and the radio. There was no music playing like it had when he’d travelled in the Impala with Dean. Instead there was one news report after another, telling of bombings in Mexico, England, Russia. The day before, the same weapon that had taken out Los Angeles had levelled a large portion of Tokyo. They didn’t know who or what had done it. Speculations ranged from terrorists to alien invasion.

“No human weapon has the power for destruction on this scale,” one man on the radio had said, and he was right.

Dean had become a weapon. He had been human, but Michael was not. Michael could have done this before, on a smaller scale in a lesser vessel, but he had waited. Now he was making a point. He was calling for attention because Dean had given him the right.

Topeka got wiped out, completely, just hours after the truck had passed through. The driver clenched her fists around the wheel and clenched her teeth and fought for almost a minute before letting out an animal-like scream.

But she never stopped driving.

 

-

 

Getting picked up got harder after that. There were more and more people walking on the highways, trying to catch a ride, and the cars kept going past them. Some of the people were armed. Castiel had nothing with him that anyone could want so he felt safe, but he’d found the body of a woman by the side of the road after a day of walking, her clothes torn and a bullet hole in the centre of her forehead.

The number of cars going past increased for a day or two, and someone did pick Cas up, let him ride along. After just two hours there was a traffic jam, the road blocked by an accident and too many cars, and the blaring of horns made Castiel’s head hurt. He eventually left the car and walked on because his walking pace was still faster than standing still. Somewhere nearby there was the sound of a gunshot, quickly followed by another. Castiel left the road behind; it could not help him anymore and his sense of direction was still as good as it always had been. Between the trees and fields he felt better. He understood that he was fragile now. Mortal.

What he did not quite understand was why he bothered to go on.

 

-

 

Castiel was no longer the angel he had been, but he still had a sense of the world, a connection to Heaven that humans were lacking. Perhaps he would lose this over time, if he lived long enough to do so, but for now it was still there. From the moment he had woken up on the ship that pulled him out of the sea, he had known that Michael had taken his destined vessel and was going to war.

He also knew that Lucifer had not, that Sam Winchester had not yet given in. Castiel didn’t even know if he would feel it when that happened, but he knew that had it happened, more than some major cities would have been turned to dust.

It was ironic, if nothing else, that after everyone had been so focused on looking out for the first signs of Sam giving in, it had been Dean who had caved first. Perhaps it was also Castiel’s fault; if he had supported his friend more instead of letting him carry his burden on his own, Dean might have withstood longer, until…

…until what, exactly?

It was only now, when everything was too late and everything had gone wrong and Castiel was wandering shivering and hungry through the chilly night air of a doomed country, that he realised that after the Colt had failed and God turned his back, he hadn’t really thought there was any way left to defeat Lucifer. He had hoped, he had fought, but he hadn’t believed. Instead, he had been waiting for Sam Winchester to fail. Then, at least, no one else would have been too blame and Dean giving into the pressure weighing him down would have been a noble sacrifice that would not have soiled Castiel’s memory of his friend.

But Sam Winchester, with his unexpected, stubborn strength and faith in his brother, a faith that Dean had not been able to summon, had ruined even that.

 

-

 

He couldn’t keep out of the towns forever. Eventually, he came to a point where avoiding one would have demanded too much of a detour to be practical, and he was hungry, so he decided to pass through it and see if he couldn’t find something edible along the way. He soon regretted it.

During his absence from civilisation, fuel had become a problem. There were very few cars running, fewer people on the streets. The air was pregnant with tension and fear. Castiel did not attempt to approach anyone.

He found a grocery store and tried to take some pre-packed sandwiches, justifying the theft with his lack of money and a life being worth more than food that would be past its expiration date in two days, but the clerk caught him and threatened to shoot him so he left hungry.

 

-

 

Due to lack of alternatives, Castiel learned how to lure small animals into traps and end their lives with a quick snap of their necks, so he could eat them. The night after his attempt at shoplifting, he heard a roaring sound in the distance, far away and yet recognizable as the sound of something big ending. The horizon was lit up with a bright, holy light for hours.

The country hadn’t fallen completely into chaos yet, but Castiel knew it was only a matter of time. Sometimes, he heard gunfire in the night, and once he came across a farm that had recently burned down. He began to worry that the place he was heading towards would be deserted, or simply not there anymore.

 

-

 

It took him weeks to get there and his feet were covered in blisters by the time he made it. He was very hungry. He needed a shower and fresh clothes because he was human enough now to be bothered by the smell of his own body.

Before, his body had not smelt bad because he hadn’t sweated. His hair hadn’t turned greasy and keeping his clothes clean and whole hadn’t even cost him a thought. He’d never before had to walk around on oozing wounds on the soles of his feet.

People stayed away from him whenever he came across them. One time, a young woman had drawn a gun and threatened to shoot him should he come any closer.

But the city of Sioux Falls was still there, still untouched. This far north the destruction wasn’t as bad, but Castiel could still feel the strain, could sense the change in the lack of cars on the street and the almost empty supermarkets he passed. People avoided him here as well, but at least there were people around to avoid him.

The Singer Salvage Yard was where it had always been, looking as it always had. Old, broken cars stood in piles and in the middle there was the house, the windows unlit although it wasn’t a bright day. Castiel worried as he entered through the front door, opening it with the same certainty as he’d always had so that afterwards he wasn’t sure if the door had been locked or not.

In the badly lit rooms he heard the click of a safety catch being removed before he saw Bobby Singer in a doorway. There was a moment of silence as they both stared at the other and then Bobby said, “Castiel?” full of disbelief and without lowering the shotgun he had trained at the fallen angels face.

“What is left of me,” Castiel confirmed, and admitted, “My powers are gone. I did not know where else to go. If you wish, I can leave.” And as he spoke the words he realised that if he was asked to leave he could just as well ask the hunter to pull the trigger since there was nowhere else he could go and nothing else he could do.

But Bobby just put away the gun. “We thought you were dead.”

“So did I. Unfortunately, I was merely banned from Heaven and lost my grace. I am afraid I cannot be of much use to you.”

“Welcome to the club.” Bobby turned and rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle from the table and handed it to the fallen angel. “Drink this.”

It was, without doubt, holy water to test if a demon had moved into Jimmy Novak’s body the moment Castiel had disappeared from it. He drank without hesitation and felt nothing but faint, accepting disappointment when he tasted only water. He would have been able to tell the difference, before.

Afterwards, Bobby nicked him with a silver knife and threw salt at him. Once it was established that Castiel was Castiel, the hunter seemed to deflate, sinking deeper into this chair as if all his energy were gone. “You know what happened?”

“Dean said Yes.” The bitterness that came with the words was unexpected. Castiel had known all along; saying it out loud did not change anything about it.

“Yeah. And Michael’s been busy, for all I can tell. Or isn’t it him who’s wreaking havoc on the major cities of the world right now?”

There was something fragile, like hope, in the old hunter’s voice that Castiel had to crush. “It is Michael. He is trying to get Lucifer’s attention. Once the Devil has moved into his destined vessel, they will fight and nothing will remain.”

Bobby closed his eyes for a second, but shook his head at the same time. “Not if we can prevent it. There has to be something we can do.”

“There isn’t. Michael is far too powerful. The moment he got a hold on his true vessel, all was lost. There is a reason why we fought so hard to keep this from happening.”

Bobby opened his eyes, shot Castiel a warning glare, but that didn’t stop the next words coming from the angel’s mouth. “This is Sam’s fault.”

“Shut up,” Bobby hissed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do. I was there. We did all we could to keep Dean away from Michael. We locked him in, where he was safe, but Sam let him out and led him to his downfall. What is this if not his fault?”

“How about everyone’s?” Bobby snapped. “Is Sam physically stronger than you? Did he pull an angel killing weapon and threaten to kill you if you didn’t allow Dean to run free? Hell, we didn’t even need Sam specifically to go after Adam that day. What kept you from locking him in with his brother? What kept me?”

Castiel opened his mouth to reply, but closed it when he realised he _had_ no reply to that. Eventually he admitted, “Sam was so certain Dean would not say yes, that I wanted to believe him.”

“As did I. I love those boys, but they’ve broken my heart often enough. Still, I thought if anything could have made Dean change his mind, it was Sam.”

“Exactly,” Castiel confirmed, getting to the bottom of his own confused motivations. It did not make him resent Dean’s younger brother any less. “Sam knew Dean better than anyone. Better than me. If Sam trusted him, how could we be expected to see he was wrong to do so?”

“Hold on a minute.” Anger clouded the human’s face as he attempted to stare Castiel down from where he was sitting in his wheelchair. “I know it’s damn easy to blame everything on Sam, but don’t you think we’ve done that enough already? How about we see who really messed up before we place the blame on him, huh?” He pressed his lips together until they were only a thin line. “How about we blame Dean?”

“Dean never had a chance.” It was surprising even to Castiel how much he still felt the need to defend his friend. But maybe that was the point: Dean was his friend, and friends stood up for one another, didn’t they? That was what Dean had taught him, and if Dean had let him down and it was all his fault, then was anything Castiel had fallen for actually worth his sacrifice? “He relied on us to watch over him.”

“Dean betrayed us,” Bobby bust out, looking like he regretted the words the moment he said them but adding anyway, “We relied on him and he let us down. He let Sam down. You weren’t there.”

“Neither were you.”

“You’re right, I wasn’t. Because I’m bound to this metal death trap!” Bobby slapped the arms of the wheelchair, his voice betraying the frustration he felt about his condition more than Castiel had ever witnessed before. “I’m pretty useless like this, and you can’t begin to imagine how much I wish I had been there.”

“Dean would still have said yes. It was letting _him_ go that was the mistake.”

“Maybe, but I could have been there for Sam after his brother betrayed him instead of stranding him in the middle of nowhere after Michael was done with him.”

“Sam is not the victim here,” Castiel pointed out, his own frustration rising. “It was him who betrayed Dean by failing to protect him from himself.”

“You know what? There is absolutely no point in discussing this right now,” After a second, Bobby added, “I’m glad you’re not dead.” With that, he wheeled his chair out of the kitchen, wearing irritation like a mask on his face. Castiel stayed, struggling with his own irritation and conflicted feelings. It took him a full minute and his stomach growling loudly to remind him of his hunger.

The fridge was anything but well-stocked, but he found a wrapped sandwich that looked like it was left over from something and still seemed edible, so he ate it. A glass of water helped with the thirst and second one helped even more. The thought flitted through Castiel’s mind that they were probably lucky to still have running water.

And electricity? There was still daylight outside, but the sky was overcast and there was not enough daylight to fill the house with more than a dim grey twilight. Castiel’s sight wasn’t as good as before his fall and yet he could still make everything out.  He thought there was enough light without having to turn on the lamps, probably, but he wasn’t quite sure what was normal for human sight, knowing his was better even now.

Once it was quiet, however, he could hear a voice from behind the door leading to the living room. It was a stranger speaking and the voice had that slight distortion to it that made him understand it was a radio or television he heard. He couldn’t tell the difference as well as before but it was still very easy to make out.

The time he had spent hitchhiking had taught him much about the new limitations of his senses so the vagueness of the distortion no longer came as a surprise.

Castiel fond himself listening for the words being said, but it was difficult to make them out through the closed door since the volume was very low, just a distant electronic device that Bobby had forgotten to turn off. Something about recent events, about casualties, a warning to the people to leave the big cities. A news station, then. The fallen angel finally put down his glass and entered the living room so he could listen more easily.

He had only a vague idea how many places had been hit. He knew exactly how many were to follow.

The living room seemed darker than the kitchen as it was larger and offered more places for shadows to fall. The tv was turned off but there was a radio standing on a shelf at the far end. The coffee table was cluttered with papers. Sam sat on a chair next to the window, looking out. He did not turn to greet Castiel.

It took Castiel a moment to decide if he should acknowledge the human’s presence or not. Eventually he said “Hello Sam.”

Sam turned slowly, looking at him through bloodshot, empty eyes. No doubt he had heard every word that was spoken in the kitchen and suddenly Castiel felt awkward about it, if not ashamed. “Hey Cas.”

“How long have you been staying here?”

“Since Michael,” Sam replied. The time it took Castiel to wake up and come here. “More or less. There were some… wait a second.” He lifted his hand to call for silence and sat very still, his attention fully on the voice coming from the radio. Castiel listened as well. There was a story about a town in Minnesota where half the population had been murdered. It had nothing to do with the worldwide attacks the media still had no explanation for; instead it seemed that a lot of people had suddenly decided to kill their friends and family. A survivor was interviewed, talking hysterically about how his mother had suddenly gone after him with a knife, and how his father had tied his sister to her bed while she was sleeping and shot her when she woke up.

Sam muttered a word that Castiel, for all his superior hearing, could not make out, and added, a little louder, “Shit.”

“What did you say?” Castiel asked.

“I said we’ve got a problem. More than before, I mean.” Sam laughed humorlessly. “And that’s a real accomplishment, don’t you think?”

Castiel frowned, still so very confused about these humans and their way with words. “I don’t see how this would be something to be proud of.”

But Sam ignored him, getting off his chair to call for Bobby. He left the room with long strides, and having nothing else to focus on Castiel followed him, finding both hunters in the bedroom, Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed explaining to Bobby what he had just heard.

“You’ve got an idea?” Bobby asked. It was a rhetorical question, Castiel thought – it was obvious that Sam had some idea what was going on. “Think it’s Michael?”

“I think it’s Lucifer,” Sam explained. “Remember that story we told you about the town in Oregon three years ago? Where everyone suddenly turned violent and then disappeared?”

“That Croatoan thing?” Now he heard it, Castiel recognized the word Sam had muttered before. “That virus you happened to be immune to? Yeah, I remember.”

“I’m not sure I just _happened_ to be immune,” Sam said with a grimace. “Anyway, this sounds a lot like it, and back then it was Azazel’s doing. So Lucifer is more likely the culprit.”

“It’s Pestilence.” Now Castiel had heard this much about it, the conclusion was clear. Both Sam and Bobby stared at him, for the first time realizing he was even in the room with them. “Working on Lucifer’s orders, of course,” he added, in case Sam thought he was arguing against him.

“Great. Just fantastic.” Bobby slapped the armrests of his chair, his dark face contradicting his confusing choice of words. “So it’s just a horseman of the apocalypse. No problem at all.”

“It’s very much a problem,” Castiel corrected him.

“How do we stop him?” Sam’s pale, tired face turned to the angel. “How can we stop the virus? There has to be a cure, somehow.”

“There is no cure,” Castiel said bluntly. “Everyone infected is lost.”

“Then how do we keep it from spreading?”

It was interesting, Castiel thought, that with all the billions of people in the world, Sam seemed convinced that it was his job to stop the virus. But then, he was the one to blame for all of this, so there was reason to it. At least, he was taking responsibility for his errors.

Castiel, however, had no answer for him – none that Sam would have liked. The silence stretched between them until Bobby let out a curse through clenched teeth.

“We kill all the infected,” he voiced what they were all thinking. It was the logical course of action and the infected were already lost, so Castiel didn’t see what the issue was, even as Sam closed his eyes for a second.

“It will be impossible for just us to find and take them all out ,” Castiel mentioned the one thing that actually was a problem here. “We do not have the means to isolate and cauterize the infected areas,” – now Sam was staring at him, wide-eyed and shocked, and Bobby looked at him as if he were a stranger – “but any other method will be less effective.”

“We are not going to kill countless innocents to ‘cauterize’ anything,” Bobby said with much more force than necessary.

“We don’t have the means,” Castiel agreed. “Perhaps we should contact the authorities that do.”

“We’re not going to do it. No one is going to do that. Especially with what’s happening at the moment. Don’t you think enough people have been killed already?”

“There will be more,” Castiel pointed out, unblinking, staring at Sam who wouldn’t look up. “You cannot kill every single Croatoan infected person yourself.”

“No,” Sam confirmed quietly. “We wouldn’t even know who is infected. There is a test, but… it’s not practical. We’ll need something else. But Cas is right.”

“What now?” This time, Bobby’s incredulous gaze was directed at Sam, but Sam shook his head, denying whatever the man was thinking.

“About contacting the authorities,” he clarified. “I know more about the virus than anyone else. Maybe they can profit from that. Find a better test, maybe something that doesn’t require taking blood. Like making them glow in the dark… I don’t know.”

“That would be too nice. No way that’s gonna happen.”

“Wouldn’t work anyway.” Sam’s shoulders slumped and he was looking towards the floor again. “This isn’t a zombie-virus. You can’t tell they are infected until they attack you. Even with a test telling they are no longer themselves, people aren’t going to attack their families if they act normal, their children…” He trailed off. Bobby placed a hand on his arm.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is,” Sam and Castiel said at the same time. Bobby looked up, glared at the angel as if he could chase him out of the room with the power of his gaze. Sam looked at the angel with something like gratitude.

“Anyway,” Sam cleared his throat. “We can’t just sit around deciding that fighting is hopeless. Also, there’s Dean.”

“Who’s gone,” Castiel reminded him flatly.

“But doesn’t have to stay gone.” Sam’s lips twitched. “We need to get Michael out of him, and the problem with the exploding cities, at least, will be solved.”

“Oh, right, there was that obvious solution.” Bobby’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “How come I didn’t think of that myself?”

Sam ignored him. “Cas,” he said, looking at the angel. “What can we do to get an angel out of his vessel?”

 

-

 

The answer to Sam’s question, of course, was ‘Nothing’. Getting an angel out of their vessel without consent was easy as long as it was the Heavenly Host doing it. When Castiel had been called back to Heaven that time, leaving Jimmy Novak behind, unexpectedly, in control of his own body, Castiel hadn’t had a chance. But he used to be a low-ranking angel and now he was even less. Exorcising the vessel of an archangel was nearly impossible even with the power of Heaven on their side. Without it, it _was_ impossible.

Sam would not have that. He was stubborn, insisting there had to be a way if only they looked hard enough. He would not give up on his brother; Castiel wanted to remind him that they would not _need_ to look if Sam hadn’t pushed Dean into Michael’s arms but knew it would not contribute to the discussion.

He learned that Sam had already done some research. Somehow, Castiel had thought he had been sitting here, in Bobby’s living room, shell shocked since Dean left, but Sam had started looking for a way to get his brother back the moment he got to Bobby’s place after losing Dean, never taking a break unless exhaustion forced him to. Now he was presenting the lore he had found, the rumours and the myths and the theories to Castiel. Asking his opinion on this, the chances of success for that. He was desperate, that much was clear, and Castiel learned more and more about the cruelty of emotions when he took perverted glee in pointing out the errors and destroying every hope.

He wanted hope himself. He wanted Dean back and he wanted to have won this war, but no one cared about that either.

To be fair, he had known from the beginning that there was next to no hope. But at least he had fought for what he considered to be the right thing. At least he had not given up and surrendered like Dean.

 

-

 

The first night at Bobby’s house was more restful, despite everything, than Castiel’s nights had been in a long time. He hadn’t slept much on the road, and the few times he had, he’d done it sitting in the passenger seat of a car, then laying half-aware in between trees or bushes, listening to his surroundings even in his sleep. Now he had a bed and walls to keep away intruders and was in the presence of only people he trusted.

This was his first night in which he’d slept sheltered, ever.

And yet, sleep did not come easily, for all he was exhausted and in need of it. His thoughts kept circling, and when sleep finally claimed him, they followed him down into what he believed humans called dreams, creating images and scenes that made no sense.

 

-

 

He was woken by screams. They came from inside the house and Castiel was awake in an instant, jumping out of the bed and running down the stairs. It was Sam screaming, and it sounded agonized. Castiel thought that maybe they were being attacked, although there was no sound of fighting, no voices but Sam’s and then, when Castiel reached the ground floor, Bobby’s, cursing in his bedroom.

The older hunter sounded unhappy, but not alarmed. He knew what this was, then. Castiel did not, and he decided to have a weapon at the ready whenever he slept from now on, so he would not have to look for one with the attackers already upon them.

But the house was silent and empty and the screams had stopped within the twenty-one seconds it took Castiel to get to the living room. The moonlight falling through the windows was enough to let him see everything as clearly as an electrical light would have done for a human and he saw Sam on the couch, his limbs sprawled, one leg hanging off and the woollen blanket twisted around him. It looked uncomfortable, though Castiel knew he had slept on this couch often. There was no reason for him to do it now, though, since Bobby’s bedroom on the second floor was unreachable for the older man and he had moved his sleeping quarters downstairs. Perhaps Sam had given the room up so Castiel could have it. In that case, he had made a foolish decision. Castiel could have slept sufficiently on the floor.

A flashlight in Bobby’s room was turned on – Castiel saw the light falling through the gap under the door and heard a grunt and the rustling of clothes as the hunter moved to get himself into his wheelchair. Castiel thought about calling to let him know that there was no danger, but then he looked at Sam and was distracted.

That Sam wasn’t screaming anymore didn’t mean he was fine. His hands were clenched around the blanket and he was tossing weakly, breathing as if in pain. Castiel wondered if he was sick or just having a nightmare. Both Sam and Dean were prone to them. After everything that had happened lately, it wouldn’t have been unexpected.

Sam’s face was white in the colourless gleam of night. His breathing was too harsh. His lips were moving and he whispered the word ’no’, as tears escaped his closed eyelids to disappear into his hair.

“Sam.” Castiel touched his shoulders, not gently. He shook the boy he’d once considered something like a friend but Sam did not wake. His back arched and his arms started flailing so Castiel had to take hold of them to keep him from harming himself, but his eyes remained closed. After a few seconds, he started screaming again.

Castiel shook him again, harder. It was of no use. He captured both wrists in one hand, finding them unexpectedly thin, and pressed the other to Sam’s forehead, reaching for the last remnants of the powers that once were a part of him.

All he felt was the loss. There was nothing reverberating in him and Sam kept screaming. Then the door down the hall opened and Bobby rolled out dressed in sweatpants and an undershirt and surrounding himself with an unending litany of curses like a shield. He moved his wheelchair over to the couch, nudging Castiel to step out of the way.

“What are you standing around here for?” he growled, reaching for something beside him on the table.

“I am unable to wake him,” Castiel explained, stepping aside to make room for the chair that fit in the space between couch and table only with difficulty. Bobby snorted something under his breath and reached out to take Sam’s left arm out of Castiel’s grip. Even though he was having more trouble keeping it still, the angel did not offer further help.

Bobby lifted his other hand and brought it down onto Sam’s arm with force. Sam jerked, stopped screaming, and opened his eyes.

“Welcome back,” Bobby grumbled, his glare only insufficiently masking his concern. “There goes another night.” He pulled back his hand; Castiel saw something thin and pointed glittering with blood for a second before Bobby wiped it off with a cloth and placed it back on the table.

“Sorry.” Sam sat up, rubbing his face. Only then did he notice Castiel sitting beside him. “Hey, Cas.” He gave a slightly bashful smile. “Did I wake you?”

“You did, but it is nothing to worry about. What was that? You are hurt.” Castiel reached for Sam’s arm, but Sam withdrew it and pressed it to his chest in a gesture that seemed more embarrassed than protective.

“It’s nothing.”

“What it is, is the only way to wake him,” Bobby explained. “And believe me, it was luck that we figured that out. And with luck I mean after freaking out for an hour when I couldn’t snap him out of it, I resorted to desperate measures.” He lit a candle and got a box of paper towels and band aids, all ready on the table behind him, and got to work on Sam’s arm. Castiel saw the other small, deep puncture wounds that marred Sam’s skin, some barely scarred over, none of them very old.

“How often does this happen?”

“Every night so far, since Dean’s stunt with the archangel. Less often before.” Somehow, Bobby managed to make the statement sound like a question, looking at Sam, and Sam nodded in confirmation. “We’ve tried to prevent it, but it seems that we still haven’t got the angel-proofing right. Maybe you can take a look at it and tell us what we’re doing wrong.”

“What does preventing the entry of angels have to do with Sam’s nightmares?” Castiel found himself asking. “Do you know what is causing them?”

Bobby snorted. “Of course we do. It’s Lucifer, trying to crack Sam like they cracked his brother.” He probably didn’t notice Sam’s flinch at his words but Castiel did, and yes, it did make sense. Lucifer was patient, but he was also without his vessel when Michael wasn’t and everyone had expected Sam to give in first. Including Castiel. Including Dean.

Including, possibly, Sam.

“I will look at them,” he promised. “But I cannot assure you that anything will work. Why aren’t you sleeping in the panic room?” He turned to Sam. “Even if it does not prevent the access of angels, it would be safer for you.”

“But not for Bobby,” Sam reminded him. “He can’t get down the stairs.”

“And I can’t wake him if he’s sleeping down there alone,” Bobby added. “Although, now you are here, it might be worth a thought.”

 

-

 

The Enochian symbols that shielded Bobby’s house were faulty. There was just one small mistake that had rendered the protection useless; Castiel had fixed it easily, and there was hope the next night would be more restful for Sam.

Sam protested the idea of Castiel staying in the panic room with him so he could wake him if needed, unwilling to leave Bobby upstairs and unprotected in the event of an attack. Only Castiel promising that after the sleep he’d got the night before he would not need sleep for several days and could keep an ear out for trouble, made him give in in the end.

It was of no use. The nightmares still came, Lucifer trying to talk – or torture – Sam into giving his consent, and only Castiel applying a minimum of violence to the boy could wake him from the torment. Questions did not lead to an explanation of what exactly it was the Devil did to Sam in his dreams. After it was clear that there was no possibility of granting Sam restful sleep, he started trying to avoid sleep altogether, if possible.

 

-

 

Three days after Castiel had arrived at the house, word reached them of a couple of hunters fighting the inhabitants of a small town not three hours from Sioux Falls and Sam decided to go and help. He did know more about the Croatoan virus than any other human, after all. There was no stopping him, so Castiel went along as well. It was not like he had anything better to do.


	2. Chapter 2

There were seven hunters fighting the Croatoan-victims when they arrived. Originally, there had been eleven. Sam had been worried it would be hard to convince them that there was no cure and killing the infected was the only way to keep them from spreading the virus, but the hunters were already killing everything that moved. When the fighting was over, there were four hunters left. They knew, through rumours, that the rapid destruction of their world was Sam’s fault and turned on him as soon as the last infected had been taken out. Castiel had to save his life and drive them back before anyone could steal their car or their gas.

“You needn’t have bothered,” Sam gasped from the backseat, pressing a hand to the wound in his side. “He would have brought me back anyway.”

 

-

 

They ran out of gas about thirty minutes before Sioux Falls and left he car behind. Sam wasn’t doing well. He was sweating, obviously in pain, but kept on walking, carrying the bag with the ammunition, the salt and the holy water until he collapsed by the side of the road.

“Let me see the wound,” Castiel demanded, but Sam shook his head, insisting he would be fine.

So Castiel sat beside him, waiting for the ragged breathing to calm down. When it did, it was very quiet. There were no other cars on this road, hardly any cars around anymore, at all. No more gas was delivered to the stations, what had been left had run out days ago.

Birds were singing in the trees at the other side of the road. A soft wind was blowing and the sun was warm on their faces. Two hours ago, men and women who’d fought for the same goals as them had tried to kill Sam Winchester for allowing the Devil to walk free, and now he was lying in the grass, staring up at the sky.

“Bobby hates being left behind,” he whispered, unprompted. “He hates it. He never says so but he feels useless. He wanted to come with us. He’s looking for a way to get Dean back and when he finds it, he will want to be there when we do it.”

“Let me see your wound,” Castiel said again, and this time Sam let him peel away the blood soaked fabric of his shirt, his limp hand offering no resistance. The knife wound underneath was deep and jagged, the blood almost black. Castiel could tell that organs had been penetrated. Sam was dying.

“I wish we could take Bobby,” he whispered. “Dean… I don’t know what to say to Dean when he comes back.”

Castiel leaned back, closing his eyes against the brightness of the sun. “Neither do I.”

 

-

 

Death took its time claiming Sam. The sun was slowly sinking and they were utterly exposed where his body had given out, so he took out his knife with weak and trembling hands and slip his own throat. He didn’t ask Castiel for help.

Afterwards it was only eleven minutes before he woke with a gasp. The time stretched oddly and uncomfortably in as way Castiel was not used to as he waited beside Sam’s cooling corpse for his wounds to heal.

 

-

 

When Sam came back to life, his back arched off the ground, and then he curled on his side and spent a minute struggling for air.

“Are you well?” Castiel asked when it became apparent that the boy had gotten over his resurrection. Sam nodded shakily and accepted Castiel’s hand to pull him back to his feet.

“You could have gone on without me,” Sam said as they resumed their walk and Castiel nodded.

“I could have.” He could have. It simply had never occurred to him. “Anything could have happened to you if I’d left you alone,” he pointed out, though that was also not something he had considered.

Sam shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But what would that matter?”

 

-

 

Bobby was home when they reached his house just before noon the next day. Castiel had expected nothing else. The weathered hunter was sitting at his desk, reading in the light streaming in through the window, just like he had done every day before they had left. The only difference was the shotgun leaning in easy reach against the desk, half concealed though Castiel spotted it at once.

Bobby did not reach for it when they entered but the expression on his face spoke of relief. “How’d it go?”

“Some of the hunters were still alive when we got there. Then together we killed everyone.” Sam’s voice was dull, lacking emotion. It did not suit him; Sam was never lacking emotion. “I can give you the names of the hunters who died.”

He did not mention that the surviving hunters had killed him as well, so Castiel didn’t either.

“Anything new?” Bobby asked with a wary sigh. He seemed to have aged since they last met, or perhaps Castiel had been too distracted before to see the shadows beneath his eyes, the gauntness of his face. He had not shaved in days.

“Nothing. This outbreak was… contained. Others weren’t. You?” Sam nodded towards the book Bobby was reading, written in Japanese.

Bobby slammed it shut without marking the page. “Nothing.”

 

-

 

They hadn’t eaten anything in over a day. Castiel felt hunger gnawing at him, but he had eaten the day before and could easily ignore it. Sam, on the other hand, had to be starving. While the others spoke, Castiel entered the kitchen to see if there was anything edible to be found for the two humans.

To his surprise, no more than one small can of beans had been taken from the supply closet. Castiel quickly made a simple sandwich, cut it in half, and as he carried it back to the others, he asked, “Did you not eat while we were gone?”

“I ate some,” Bobby said gruffly. “But I think it might not be a bad idea to go easy on the food for a while. Who knows when we will get more?”

He had a point. A week ago, there was already hardly anything left in the stores.

“Is there nothing being delivered to the cities at all?” Sam asked. He looked worried but Castiel could tell that he already knew the answer.

“’Coarse not. Not to this place, anyway. Those who have anything at all do their level best to keep it. Times of sharing are over, and the people are beginning to get that money is worthless if there’s nothing to buy. Looting has already started in the area. To be honest, I’m surprised it took so long.”

It explained the shotgun. Bobby’s house was remote, but Castiel feared that would make it a more attractive target rather than protect it.

“Did anyone come here?” Sam asked, proving he was thinking along the same lines.

Bobby snorted. “Got a reputation and a large number of guns. They aren’t that desperate yet.”

“How do you even know about the looting? Did you find batteries after all?” The radio had died just before they left.

“I wish. Jodie Mills came to check on me. Told me what’s happing in town. I gave her the report you wrote on the virus.”

“Ah.” The hint of a smile was seen on Sam’s face. “Is she okay?”

“As okay as she can be with everything going to hell. She’ll come back tomorrow, bring some batteries and maybe some food.”

“That’s great.”

“Isn’t it? So at least you don’t have to worry about me while you go out there saving the world.” Bobby did not even attempt to keep the bitterness out of his voice, and the barely-there smile vanished off Sam’s face.

“It’s not like there’s a lot we can do right now. We need some kind of plan. We need to find out where Michael is. And for that we need you.”

Bobby scoffed, not convinced, no happier than he’d been before. Sam didn’t look happy either. All in all, there was little to be happy about.

Castiel still did not know how to free Dean.

Dean did not want to be freed. Dean had chosen this.

Dean had chosen Michael over Castiel, over Sam. He had given up.

Outside the house the world was ending and Dean had chosen that too.

 

-

 

Sam did not sleep again that night. He sat and read and translated. He did not eat any more of the food Bobby would need to survive until this was over.

Until Sam and Castiel found a way to stop this.

Perhaps there would be nothing left of the world by that time, Castiel thought around midnight as he watched Sam read by the light of a candle from his place on the couch.

The next morning, he was sure of it. At five to three in the morning, the house shook and an infernal noise woke Castiel from his sleep. He could see lights dancing in front of the windows, and the house shook again. It was as if the sky was screaming.

In the morning, the sun did not rise. Castiel was the first to notice, since his internal clock worked as well as it had before his fall (only time had a different meaning). The others had agreed not to go out before daylight, and they must have realized not long after Castiel that daylight had not come. But neither said anything.

 

-

 

In the afternoon, Sam went outside after all, and Castiel followed without being asked. Neither of them made it further than the yard. Dust filled the air, so thick that they could hardly breathe even with cloths wrapped around their faces. The dust completely blocked out the sun, had them feel blindly for their way, and if Castiel had not known that one of the key components was still missing, he would have thought that the final battle had already happened.

It was not the first cataclysmic event Castiel had witnessed, not by far. But all the ones before had been further away. They had not concerned him. He had not been mortal then, and he had cared for no one who was mortal.

Night fell and made no difference. Castiel could tell Sam and Bobby were both itching to go outside and assess the damage to the town, but the dust and the darkness forced them to stay inside. He pointed out that if the air did not clear very soon, all life on this planet would die, but could tell that they did not consider his remark helpful.

Neither spoke for the rest of the night. Bobby, who had not slept since he had been woken by the noise the night before, remained awake, staring at the darkness behind the window as if willing it to disappear. Sam, who had been awake for days, attempted to remain so but drifted off sitting on the couch, while Castiel watched out for signs of nightmares but could not bring himself to act when they appeared.

This time, Sam did not scream, or struggle against something unseen. He merely twitched, and an expression of pain appeared on his face, and at one point he whimpered, but apart from that he was almost unnaturally still. He woke on his own, five and a half hours later, his face pale. He did not speak, or move much. Bobby watched him, frowning, from where he was sitting, but it was Castiel who posed the question.

“What did he say?”

“That this is my fault,” Sam whispered. “He said that I could have stopped this, that it was Michael who did this.”

“He lied,” Bobby declared, tightening the grip around his shotgun.

Castiel shook his head. “He didn’t.”

 

-

 

Another half day passed by before the first light was seen through windows half-blind with dust. Sam and Castiel made their way outside in the evening; it was still bad, but they were able to breathe without chocking if they wrapped scarves around their faces and Bobby gave them goggles to wear so the dust would not get into their eyes. He stayed behind, unhappy and holding his shotgun like it was a lifeline. Sam and Castiel each had a gun stuck in their waistband. It was disconcerting to depend on such tiny, imprecise weapons, but Castiel had learned that for a mortal they had their merits.

But they had their dangers, too. The dust was still so thick that when Sam walked six feet ahead of Castiel, he became little more than a moving shadow, the mere idea of a human shape. Should anyone attack them, Castiel would not know which shape to aim for.

But no one attacked them. Not on the long way into town and not once they got there. The houses left and right were little more than outlines, if they were even that. There was no one else trying to find their way through the dust. Nothing moved. If was as if they were the last people left on the planet.

Sam tried knocking on the doors. There was life in this town yet: at the first house they inspected, a hysterical sounding voice told them to go away, else they would be shot. So they went. In the second house no one answered, so they broke in under the cover of the dust and found it empty. In the third house they also broke in and found a family of four lying in the living room with gunshot wounds in their heads. The corpses weren’t a day old.

At the next house once again no one answered, but when Sam opened the door, someone shot at them from the next room. They escaped unharmed and decided to turn back. There was little they could do for these people except leave most of the food they found in the empty houses in plastic bags at their doorsteps. The rest, they took back to Bobby’s.

Sam had wanted to go to the police station and check for news there, maybe even find sheriff Mills, but it was too far away to walk in these conditions. Already, what little light they had was disappearing, and breathing became harder with every minute they spend outside.

They didn’t make it back before dark, and when they did, Sam leaned against the wall for a minute, coughing and breathing hard even though they hadn’t run. Even Castiel’s throat felt tight after breathing in dusty air for so long, albeit filtered through a scarf..

Bobby came rolling over to them before they caught their breath, looking tired and worn, a thin line etched deep into the skin around his mouth. “So, how’d it go? Anything left?”

“There was no destruction that we could see,” Castiel told him because Sam was still fighting for breath. “The people have locked themselves in. They are very scared.”

“Well, no surprise there.”

“It’ll be hard to find out more before the dust has lifted some,” Sam told his old friend. “The sheriff still had a working car, though, right? Maybe we’ll be lucky and she’ll come tomorrow and tell us more.”

 

-

 

Sheriff Mills did not come the next day, or the day after. After two days, the air was clear enough to allow for an extended walk, even though the sky was still covered in clouds and dust that cast the world in lasting twilight and gave the light that made it through an orange hue. Sam and Castiel returned to the town and found it as deserted as before. No one was on the streets. They thought they saw someone standing on a porch a good bit ahead of them, but the visibility was still bad and when they came closer there was no one there.

They didn’t make it to the police station this time either. Two blocks away from it the street ended. All of a sudden, the asphalt just broke off and the ground fell away before them. Dust and smoke rose from the crater even now, but through it they could make out the ruins of buildings in a great pile of rubble, surprisingly far below them. The smoke did not allow them to see how big the crater was, so they tried to walk around it, looking for a way to get down and look for survivors. In the evening they gave up and returned to the salvage yard.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Sam said later, when they were sitting at Bobby’s kitchen table. He ran a hand over his face, looking incredibly tired and worn. “A blast like that would have kicked out every windowpane in this house, at the very least. The destruction shouldn’t be so… locally contained.”

“Remember that this was not a bomb of human design,” Castiel warned him. “It was Michael’s doing. Considering how near it happened to this place, I would think he is playing around.”

Bobby didn’t reply. He hadn’t said anything at all after they told him about the destruction they had seen. Now Sam fell silent as well, and Castiel had nothing more to say.

They were eating cereal, the first more-or-less seated meal they’d had in days, and they only indulged like this because the milk was threatening to go sour and they couldn’t let it go to waste. None of them really tasted it. They were all lost in their own thoughts.

When he was done, Bobby wordlessly wheeled away and Sam stood to take care of the dishes.

Halfway through cleaning them, the water stopped running.

 

-

 

The subject of leaving for good came up, but there was no guarantee that it would be any better anywhere else. Without a working radio they were cut off from the rest of the world, but since no help of any kind was coming, they had to assume that Sioux Falls was not the only city destroyed. At the very least, there was no place unaffected enough to send help.

Eventually, they were going to run out of food, and water was going to become a problem much sooner. Almost worse than that was the feeling of uselessness. They couldn’t do anything, not right now. Not as long as they couldn’t abandon Bobby and they couldn’t take him along, and their research was going nowhere.

They worked on a plan. Secure supplies. Get gas. They could take the Impala and try their luck somewhere else, but they didn’t know where to go and with a man who couldn’t walk they would be vulnerable wherever they got stranded. At the same time, Sam would not leave Bobby alone.

Five days after the incident that destroyed Sioux Falls, Bobby developed a plan of his own to make it easier for them to leave. It involved a shotgun and his mouth. Sam walked in on him; there was some yelling that Castiel heard from the living room, but ultimately no shot. The shadows inside the house seemed to become even deeper after that.

“We can’t stay put here forever,” Sam told Castiel later that day, after Bobby was asleep. He looked very, very tired, thin, and maybe a little sick. “Even if we could, we’re not doing anything here. We need to find Dean. And people out there need our help.”

“What could we do to help them?” Castiel asked, although he had a feeling that Sam was talking mostly to himself. “As long as they aren’t attacked by monsters or demons, there is nothing we can do for them.”

Sam stared at him, then his shoulders slumped and he sat down on a kitchen chair, his head hanging low and his hair obscuring his face.

Castiel watched for a minute and a half before he said, “It’s not your fault.”

Sam replied with a surprised, hollow sounding little laugh. “You don’t believe that.”

He had heard what Castiel told Bobby on his first day here, of course. The angel had never attempted to hide his resentment, but he had never truly deluded himself that it was fair, and now it no longer helped him deal. “It was Michael who did this. Dean who gave him the means. None of this was your doing.”

“Except for the fact that I opened the cage in the first place, and that I pushed Dean into giving up.”

Castiel closed his eyes for a second and steeled himself for what he was about to say. “No one pushed Dean into anything. The decision was his. You tried to help him; he would not take your help. I did my best to support him in his fight, I sacrificed _everything_ for him to succeed, and yet he gave up as if it meant nothing.”

Sam still wasn’t looking at him. “You said it: Dean’s fight. He was fighting all this on his own and after everything I did, how could he possibly trust me enough to share the burden?”

“It wasn’t only Dean’s fight. He just felt that way, and it was his choice to push you away. It was his choice to ignore the fact that you were tricked into opening the cage when you were willing to die in order to prevent just that. You have been used and betrayed by Heaven, and Dean knew it. He chose to discard that knowledge. He chose to feel alone and betrayed by you when he didn’t have to and he chose to let you be as alone as he was. You are by no means free of blame, but none of this can be pinned solely on you.”

Speaking the words did not make Castiel feel better, but he would never take them back. Sam finally looked up, gave him a very small, very sad smile, and Castiel knew he did not believe in the truth that had been spelled out for him. He probably never would.

Perhaps there would have been a way of convincing him it wasn’t all his fault if anyone had ever told him otherwise before.

“You should try to sleep,” Sam said. Castiel _was_ tired, but Sam looked like he needed the rest more and one of them should stay awake, in case anyone or anything unwelcome came to this house.

“I will sleep after you. Should you have a bad dream, I will wake you.”

Sam’s gaze lingered on him a little longer, then he sighed and nodded. “Guess I can’t avoid it forever. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

 

-

 

This time Castiel did wake Sam when he saw the signs of distress. They started only an hour after he fell asleep on the couch and after Castiel inflicted a shallow cut on Sam’s arm to pull him from sleep, the boy looked worse than before. Yet he refused to go back to sleep and Castiel did not press him.

Castiel himself slept for five hours. When he woke Bobby was just rolling past him and Sam still sat in the armchair, his head in his hands, a book lying open but ignored beside him. It was morning, but there was barely enough light to read by, even right beside the windows.

“Is your head hurting?”

Sam looked up and gave Castiel a shaky smile. “I just wish I could have a cup of coffee.”

There was coffee left, but the water was a problem. At the moment, Bobby had two and a half bottles of soda, some beer, and half a carton of apple juice left. A lot of the hard liquor he’d had left he had consumed the night before, between fighting with Sam over his planned suicide and passing out on his bed, but Sam and Castiel wouldn’t have touched that anyway. It would not have helped the situation.

They rationed food and drink where they could and Sam was probably dehydrated on top of his exhaustion.

Sitting inside the house would only make things worse in the long run, so Sam and Castiel decided to return to the city once again, see if they would find liquids and something edible somewhere and try to get in contact with the people still alive. Perhaps they could help each other. They had to, because no one else would.

Perhaps one of them had a working radio.

For all that they did not go out purposefully to fight, going unarmed would have been more than unwise. Fortunately, guns and ammunition were the one things they were not about to run out of anytime soon. It was Castiel who grabbed all they needed, and while he was in the basement, Sam fell asleep on the couch. His screams called Castiel back upstairs ten minutes later.

Bobby had already woken Sam up and was now awkwardly patting the boy’s hair while Sam curled into a ball and buried his face in a sofa pillow. When Castiel came in, a glance and a shaking of Bobby’s head send him down into the basement again, where he continued to inspect the hunter’s knife collection, taking his time.

 

-

 

Bobby brewed some coffee after all, using stale sparking water and a lot of crushed beans, making it strong. It wouldn’t get Sam through the day, but hopefully it would keep him alert enough for an afternoon in a possibly hostile environment.

“If I get shot or eaten, that’s okay,” he said when Bobby tried to convince him not to go. “I pop right back up.” Bobby’s face only got darker after that, but Sam did have a point.

Nothing, however, tried to eat them on their way into town. No one shot at them, either, although it was close at one point. By now, people had dared to leave their houses. Black smoke rising from the direction of the street they had visited before alarmed Castiel and Sam long before they got there, but what they found, in the end, was only the surviving members of this community burning their dead on a large pyre at the side of the road. They were startled by the new arrivals and guns were pointed at Sam’s and Castiel’s faces, but ultimately not fired. Altogether, everyone was rather glad to see that someone other than them was still alive.

Sam asked them if any of them had a working radio. One answered in the affirmative, but told them that the last station he got went off the air two days ago. “They warned of a breakout of that virus in Toronto,” the man told them. “Don’t know about you, but I don’t give a flying fuck about Toronto. I want to know what happened here, but all the guy had on that was that Chicago and Sioux Falls are gone. I fucking knew that! You see that crater over there? That’s were Sioux Falls is supposed to be!” In the end he sounded slightly hysterical and Sam turned to someone else when he asked them if there had been any trouble with people behaving strangely at all.

The answer was no. Castiel was glad; apparently the Croatoan virus had not reached this city, and if it had, all infected were killed in the blast.

“Do you have any idea what happened?” an anxious looking woman asked them, prompting Castiel to nod solemnly.

“It was the wrath of the archangel Michael that destroyed this city.”

In the resulting silence, Sam threw him a tired look. Then the first man laughed, soon joined by another one. A second later a third snapped at them and asked them what else could have done such harm if not the wrath of an angry God?

“It was not God,” Castiel corrected him. “God prefers not to get involved in this. He will not harm you and he will not help you. This is the doing of his angels, and them alone.”

His words were followed by a long discussion in which Castiel was not able to make all of them believe him, and those who did believe him kept misinterpreting his words. Sam kept out of it all. He sat down on a rock and looked ready to pass out.

Eventually, Castiel became aware that the people around him no longer needed his contribution to keep up their discussion, which was just as well since no one was listening to him anyway. Some of the people brought up all the strange, unnatural things that had been happening even before the first city was destroyed and spoke, correctly, of the apocalypse and, incorrectly, of judgement day. Others called them religious fanatics, and some were looking for scientific explanations, while one actually blamed everything on the Russians, but he was ignored by everyone.

Castiel gave up trying to explain anything and went to sit beside Sam, only to find that spot already taken.

A young woman had sat down beside the boy, her arm around Sam’s shoulder and both her hands buried in his hair, gently massaging his scalp. Sam’s head was leaned back against her shoulder and he looked half-unconscious; clearly too exhausted to even care what was going on around him. A jolt of alarm went through Castiel at the sight, the surprise making him want to reach for this weapon.

It was irrational, however. The woman was not hurting Sam. Perhaps it was only the fact that someone had gotten this close to Dean’s brother without Castiel noticing that made him react so negatively. Anything could have happened.

The woman paid no attention to Castiel as he came to stand just a few feet away. Her long, black hair was partially obscuring her face, but Castiel could see the smile playing around her lips. She completely ignored the heated discussion going on around her, as if she couldn’t care less about it.

“Whatever it is you want from him,” Castiel warned, “he cannot give it to you.”

“Oh, you’re an expert there, huh?” She didn’t look up. “He looks like a healthy young man to me.”

In that case, she had a peculiar understanding of what a healthy man looked like. “He doesn’t have time, or need, to indulge you.”

The woman pulled Sam even closer to her; he let it happen without resistance, probably not even aware of what was happening. For the first time, the stranger looked at Castiel, and though she was only a normal human, her eyes and her smile made him uneasy. “What is it that’s so important right now? This is the end of the world. We might as well enjoy it.”

“You should stop this at once.”

“Don’t be so touchy. I don’t see how this is any of your business.” She was still smiling and maybe there was something wrong with Castiel that he thought the smile indicated there something being wrong with her. Before he was able to do something about her or at least explain why everything to do with Sam was indeed his business, Sam stirred and opened his eyes with obvious effort.

He tried to sit up, and when he realized he was being held, he came fully awake with a start and threw himself forward to get away. His reaction confirmed to Castiel that he was right in not wanting this woman to engage with Sam. He stepped over to catch his friend before he could tumble to the ground and the woman stood with one fluid movement, straightened her blouse and walked back to the others to join their ongoing discussion as if she’d never been gone.

“Who was that?” Sam asked, confused, as he watched her walk away.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Castiel replied. “She seemed quite insistent to become intimate with you, but I do not think she was a danger to you. She is only human.”

“Humans can be quite dangerous,” Sam pointed out. He shuddered, then shook his head to clear it. “Sorry, shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”

“You needed it.” He still needed it. Sam couldn’t have gotten any more than five minutes of rest.

“Yeah, I guess. I just…” Sam trailed off, suddenly looking slightly disturbed.

“What is it?” Castiel asked, alarmed.

“Nothing. It’s just, I slept well. Lucifer didn’t…” Sam snorted softly. “Hardly a reason to complain. It’s nothing.”

But he never slept well, even for a few minutes. And when his searching gaze found the woman who’d held him in the small crowd, she met his eyes and winked.

 

-

 

The woman kept trying to seduce Sam, and while Sam did not get involved with her in any intimate fashion, he kept close to her. To Castiel he explained that he knew there was something off about her, and he needed to figure out what.

Castiel tried to keep one eye on them all the time while he spoke to the townspeople. On the woman, they had nothing useful. Her name was Ella, she was a school teacher and generally considered nice, if somewhat obnoxious. She was human, and Castiel did not think she was a which.

Maybe they were wrong about her.

But they weren’t. There was something very, very wrong with Ella, but Castiel was too blind to see it and Sam so tired that more than an hour passed before it occurred to him to look her in the eyes and say “Christo.”

Ella was possessed. “So what?” she said after they found out; after all the others had shied away from her back eyes and Castiel had drawn his gun. “I’m not here to harm you, Sam. I’ve come to help.”

Sam, of course, wouldn’t have any of it. He began speaking an exorcism, but was interrupted after a few words by a hard blow in the back. One of the other people had showed him over and now clamped a hand over his mouth, effectively silencing him as he flashed his own black eyes at everyone around.

Castiel fired a few shots at him, but missed with most and the one that hit the man’s arm did nothing but make him laugh. For the first time the angel truly felt the loss of his sword. It would have killed these demons quickly. Like this, he was helpless. All he had was an exorcism, but before he could even start, a tick arm wrapped around his throat from behind, cutting off his air and his voice.

The person holding him was unnaturally strong – so strong that even Castiel with his inhuman strength could not shake him off. Three demons. There were at least three demons here, and he had sensed nothing.

“Don’t struggle,” the man holding Sam told his charge. “We’re just here to take you to Lucifer. If you come willingly, we won’t even have to hurt any of these people.”

And the demon wearing the woman called Ella cooed, “I can see you are suffering, Sam. You’re so tired. You’re hurting, and your brother betrayed you. And you’re worried about that friend of yours, that old guy, right? Just say yes to Lucifer, and he will help you. No more pain, no more suffering. We’ll take care of your friends, Sam. They won’t come to harm – not like they will if you continue this senseless defiance. Our lord can be so generous if he wants to be, and there is nothing he wouldn’t do for you.”

She was leaning forward, her long hair brushing Sam’s face, forcing him to close his eyes. “But he can explain it all so much better than me. You know, of course, that we will take you now and there is nothing you can do about it. Be nice, though, and we won’t kill everyone around here. Marge,” She looked up to smile at a deadly pale, elderly woman holding a little boy to her chest. “You would like Sam to go with us willingly, right? Why don’t you tell the nice boy?”

The woman’s lips moved, but no voice was heard. And yet, the demon looked very satisfied. “There you go, Sam. Everyone wants you to leave. Why not come where you are wanted? It’s not like big brother is still around to be disappointed. Only that fallen chicken over there, and _that_ problem can easily solved.” She nodded at the demon behind Castiel. “Kill him.”

Castiel was not worried. No average demon had the power needed to kill him. It was only after a moment, when he felt the effort of the demon behind him to snap his neck, that he remembered that he no longer was an angel. Not human, never that, but not an angel either. He was nothing.

But he was still strong. The demon had a hard time fighting him as he struggled, but Castiel was still not able to shake him off. And a broken neck could kill him now. Even if he managed to get free, he could simply be shot.

Other than Sam, he would not return.

A surprised sounding yelp from the demon holding Sam attracted his attention and nearly made him lose his struggle in the distraction. The demon let go of Sam’s mouth and stumbled back, his hand pressed against his side. Sam stumbled to his knees, lifting the bloody knife in his hands in a gesture of warning, but the demon merely chuckled. “For real, now? You know that can’t kill me.”

Sam drew in breath, as if to speak. He probably wanted to continue the exorcism, but Castiel knew he’d never finish it in time. Not in time to keep them from killing anyone, and not in time to keep them from taking him to Lucifer.

“This is getting ridiculous,” the woman, apparently their leader, said impatiently. “Garry, just kill him already. Bena can shoot him if he’s giving you such a hard time.”

“No,” the demon behind Castiel grunted into his ear. “I got him. Just give me–”

He never got to finish his sentence. A shot rang through the air, making Castiel jump in shock. Up until that very moment, the possibility of his death had been abstract and theoretical. Strangely, even after an existence that had lasted since the creation of this planet from the materials of a newborn star, he did not regret his end. But he did regret that after failing Dean and throwing everything away in vain, he had also failed to protect Sam and with him the world.

The lack of pain did not surprise him until after he saw Ella stagger. Someone had shot her, instead of Castiel. It had not harmed her, of course, but it made her angry. Her eyes searched for and found her attacker somewhere in the group of frightened people surrounding them, and her face darkened.

Before she could do anything, Sam swiped the blood off the blade he was holding with his finger and stuck it in his mouth. One second later, Ella flew backwards, and so did the demon holding Castiel. Before anyone could react, Sam was on Ella, cut her neck and pressed his mouth to the wound. She shrieked, but for all her inhuman strength was suddenly unable to throw him off.

Altogether only seventeen seconds passed from the moment the shot was fired to the moment Sam looked up with blood smeared around his mouth and pulled the demon out of the man holding Castiel. The one who had held down Sam before tried to get away but did not manage to smoke out completely before Sam’s powers got a hold of him and send him straight to Hell. The host collapsed to the ground, groaning in pain and curling around the stab wound in his stomach.

Ella was last. For her, Sam used the exorcism after all, perhaps unable to summon enough power to pull her out of the woman with his mind. There was enough left to hold her down and keep her from getting away, in any case.

When it was over, silence surrounded them like a wall. Castiel looked up and saw that everyone was staring at them.

No, not at them. At Sam and the blood on his face. Of course.

Castiel waited for the inevitable panic to break out and wondered if they would be killed after all. Somewhere behind him, someone was hyperventilating.

Sam was still kneeling on the ground. He looked dazed and even worse off than he had been before. After a moment he wiped the blood off his face with the sleeve of his jacket but he didn’t get everything. Castiel went over to him and knelt to support him as he swayed.

“What the fuck just happened?” a voice asked. Castiel turned around and saw an elderly man holding a shotgun standing in front of the group. He looked shaken, but not yet determined to shoot. Shoot _again_ – Castiel was pretty sure that he was the one who had shot Ella less than a minute ago.

“These people were possessed by demons,” Castiel informed him. He nodded towards the man who had been holding him and was now holding his own head while everyone else shied away from him. “They are gone now.”

“This man needs medical attention,” Sam muttered. He was looking at the host of the demon he had stabbed.

And that, for the moment at least, was it. The attention of the others was drawn to the man on the ground; two stepped forward to help him, and Sam made use of the opportunity to pass out. He sunk into Castiel’s arms with a soft sigh, his body giving in to the stress and exhaustion, and the one guy still insecurely pointing his shotgun in their general direction accepted the lack of threat and let it drop.

 

-

 

Two hours later, Castiel and Sam still had not been killed or chased away. Instead, Sam was sleeping on a bed in one of the houses, having not so much as twitched as Castiel carried him there, and Castiel himself was sitting in the living room, explaining the demons to everyone willing to listen.

Sam was harder to explain, especially since some of the more suspicious people initially thought he had to be some kind of vampire. Others told them that they were stupid because vampires didn’t exist, which resulted in another discussion based on the fact that until an hour ago, none of them had known demons existed either. Castiel feared informing them that vampires were indeed real would not help the situation, so he didn’t.

Instead he explained that Sam had magic powers that helped him fight demons, that this was the reason why Lucifer wanted him, and that was good enough for them. Castiel was quite surprised, but first and foremost everyone seemed concerned with the fact the demons could possess people without anyone noticing. They were more worried about their friends and neighbours than about the two strangers.

One of the men they had freed from possession had not spoken a word since the demon left him. The other was badly hurt, having little hope of survival without proper medical attention, and there were voices, though not spoken to Castiel’s face, that blamed him and Sam for it. Castiel pretended not to hear, too tired to discuss it.

Sam began to stir in the afternoon; Castiel watched through the open door to the bedroom. His friend’s way back to consciousness looked slow and difficult – Sam had not gotten nearly the rest he needed and sleep had to be weighing him down, but he pushed himself up anyway and joined them in the living room. Soon after, he could put to rest the minds of the townspeople who worried about more demons in their midst. He could sense demon, now he had drunken their blood, he explained, and assured them that there were no more nearby.

 “You said something to Ella and her eyes turned black,” the man with the shotgun recalled.

Sam nodded. “I said ‘Christo’. It forces demons to reveal themselves, but it doesn’t work for powerful demons.”

“But how can we find out when you’re not here?” a woman asked. “We don’t have your abilities.”

“And how do we kill them when guns won’t?”

It was a valid concern. Demons could come again, and they were not the only danger of supernatural kind they were facing. Castiel was about to explain to them about devil’s traps and exorcisms when Sam quickly said, “There is a man living nearby who knows all about this sort of thing. His name is Bobby Singer, he runs the salvage yard. He can teach you all you need to know.”

 

-

 

The man Sam had stabbed was called Jim. He died half an hour after Sam woke up and was buried in the garden of his house beside his wife and daughter. (He had told the others that his wife had taken her life after killing the girl on the first day without sun, but now they know he was possessed they no longer believe that is what happened.) When it was done, Sam and Castiel lead five of the people to the salvage yard. Some of them knew of Bobby Singer the town drunk who never socialized with any of them, but they were willing to come anyway and believed any story Sam told them of Bobby the Hunter. This was a good time to believe in things formerly unbelievable.

Bobby awaited them with narrowed eyes and his gun at the ready but let everyone in when Sam explained what had happened.

Within an hour, Bobby had convinced the townspeople that he really was the expert Sam had made him out to be. Within two hours it was decided that everyone left from their community (just nineteen people; the ones Castiel and Sam had met really were all there were) would relocate to Bobby’s house for the moment, until they were able to set up traps for demons and had all learned the basics of protecting themselves. They would return to their houses with protective charms that would ward off the weaker demons and could come back to Bobby whenever they needed help.

Castiel understood what Sam was doing. Not only was he helping these people, he also made sure they knew they needed Bobby and would take care that he didn’t starve or freeze, or shoot himself in the head for feeling useless.

Bobby understood this as well. At the end of the day, when two of the others had left to collect the rest and the other three where preparing the rooms upstairs for a lot of guests, he confronted Sam and Castiel in the kitchen and said, “So. You’re gonna leave, then.”

“We have to,” Sam replied. “You know there’s not much we can do here. We have to find Dean, and then we have to find a way to free him.”

“Also, for all that it is hopeless, we will try to send Lucifer back to Hell and save those of your kind still alive at that point.”

Bobby sent Castiel a sour look that reminded him an honest assessment of the situation was not always appreciated, but Sam only sighed and nodded. “Cas is right,” he said. “For all it is hopeless, we have to try.”

 

-

 

That night, Sam lay down to sleep on the cot inside the panic room, ordering Castiel to close the door so he would not disturb Bobby’s guests if he screamed. “Don’t wake me,” he said. “I have to get some rest before we leave. My body won’t hold up without some hours of uninterrupted sleep and once you’ve woken me I won’t dare to lie back down.” It was a very pragmatic approach to the problem, something Castiel had learned was typical for Sam. Under the circumstances, no matter what horrors awaited Sam in his dreams, it was what he needed to do. So Castiel nodded and closed the door with himself inside the room.

When the screaming started, he did not wake Sam. At around four in the morning his body gave in to its own need for rest and together they slept until dawn.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

They left early the next day. Bobby saw them off, as did some of the people from the town. Castiel recognized their faces but did not know their names nor did he care to ask. Some of the people were glad to see them go, frightened by Sam and his powers. A few others asked him to stay.

Bobby said nothing except, “You okay? I mean – you know.”

“You mean, I drank blood and it will come to bite me in the ass?” Sam shrugged. “The withdrawal shouldn’t be so bad. I didn’t drink much.”

“And you don’t…” Bobby trailed off and didn’t continue, probably ashamed of doubting Sam’s willingness to continue his abstinence now he had had a taste. Castiel found himself thinking that they would meet more demons along the way and had no weapon to kill them but said nothing.

 

-

 

They walked for a bit, checking every car they found for gas and functionality. The first gassed car they came across, five hours later, had rolled off the road and was hidden by the bushes down a slope. The driver was still inside, half-decayed, beside an equally dead woman in the passenger seat. The bullet hole in his temple and the missing back of her head told their story.

The car looked intact, but there was no way of getting it up onto the street. While Sam used a hose to syphon the remaining gas (barely two gallons, they wouldn’t have made it much further anyway) into a can he’d found in the trunk, Castiel picked up the gun that had slipped from the woman’s fingers. They carried enough weapons with them, but could always use the extra ammunition.

The canister was heavy and Sam wasn’t feeling well, so Castiel carried it. They were travelling light, but there was still a lot to carry, from spare clothes and blankets to food and weapons. Sam had insisted on bringing a toothbrush, hating the sensation of unclean teeth. He was peculiar in ways Castiel was only now beginning to learn.

They found a working car with some leftover gas and added theirs just before Sam’s withdrawal symptoms became so bad he could no longer walk.

 

-

 

They holed up in an empty house two towns over where everyone seemed to have left, and waited for Sam’s body to rid itself of the poison. Castiel ate the canned tuna he’d found in the kitchen while he waited and thought about all the spells he knew to summon an archangel.

Sam screamed his way through the pain and hallucinations and later through whatever Lucifer was doing to him in his dreams. Castiel had learned to distinguish between a normal nightmare and Lucifer. If Lucifer was involved, Sam would scream the word ‘No’ over and over again. In his nightmares, the word he screamed loudest was ‘Dean’.

No one was around to hear him. If anyone or anything had been there, the screams would have attracted their attention and probably called them close, but no one came.

Eventually, Castiel realised that he had stopped waiting for Sam to give in. Maybe the world would not, in fact, end any -day. He wasn’t sure what to do now.

 

-

 

They found more gas and made it to Iowa where trees fallen across the roads forced them to finally abandon their car. There was a town nearby, some small place with less than ten thousand buildings. A good half of the town was burned down, the rest looked intact. Again, there was no sign of life as they walked down the streets, their guns ready and all their senses alert. Castiel could not sense anything, but not because there was nothing there. He felt naked and useless and the shotgun he held was no compensation for what he had lost.

The word CROATOAN was smeared in blood across a shop window. Sam and Castiel kept alert for danger until they found another car to take them as far as the road would allow, but everyone else had already left.

 

-

 

Half an hour later, with the needle marking the gas level close to reserve and the car squeaking with every bump in the road it hit, Castiel asked, “What happened when Dean met Michael?”

“He said yes.” Sam was driving. He didn’t look away from the road.

“What were his conditions?” Castiel couldn’t imagine Dean just handing himself over without conditions. Maybe they could find something useful there. “He asked for your safety, I assume.”

“No.” Sam’s face was still blank, but his hands gripped the steering wheel tighter than before. “He didn’t.”

 _Oh_ , Castiel thought and didn’t know what else to say.

After eight minutes of silence, Sam said, “We’ll need a weapon against demons,” as if that was the only thing on his mind.

 

-

 

The car took them all the way to the next town, and there, finally, they found living people. Two men and a woman were watching from the window of a bakery as they slowly drove by, and the moment Castiel saw them, he realized that his grace wasn’t gone completely, not yet. At least one of the men was a demon, powerful and old. Castiel saw his true form beneath the mask he was wearing – not as clearly as he would have before, but without a chance of being mistaken. He was about to warn Sam, but Sam was already turning the car around and driving back the way they came.

They didn’t make it far. The car ran out of gas long before they made it out of the city and they’d had to walk. Castiel felt they were being followed, but there was no one to be seen when he turned around and his supernatural senses had been mostly lost and couldn’t grasp the feeling. Sam told him that it was probably his imagination.

“How would you know?”

“It’s pretty common to feel you’re being followed if you know there’s a threat nearby, or even if you’re just not feeling safe.”

“You mean humans feel like this all the time?”

“Yeah. But sometimes you really _are_ being followed.”

“How can you tell the difference?”

“You can’t.”

That didn’t help. Castiel’s fading grace didn’t help either, since he didn’t know if he was already suffering from the kind of paranoia apparently common to humans, or if he was really picking up on something that was there.

They took a few turns and made an effort to walk around the place where they had seen the demon. At some point, Sam said, “We should help those people.”

“What people?”

“The possessed people. Maybe we can still save them.”

Castiel shook his head. “We don’t have a weapon to use against them. And that demon was very strong. We’ll do best to avoid it.”

“The others were weak.”

Castiel had not even been able to tell that the other two people were possessed as well. That Sam was had to be a lingering effect of the demon blood Sam had only just expelled from his system. “We shouldn’t seek confrontations where we don’t have to. We’re vulnerable like this and no help to Dean or anyone else if we’re dead.”

“How are we a help to anyone if we _won’t help_ anyone?” Sam asked bitterly. “These are the people we’re trying to save.”

“We’re trying to save your species.” Irritation crept into Castiel’s voice when it didn’t seem like Sam would see reason, but Sam just shifted the weight of his backpack and took a turn that would bring him back to the main street.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s do that.”

 

-

 

There was no doubt that the demons knew who Sam was, but Sam and Castiel could at least pretend not to know that they were demons. They approached them cautiously, claiming that they turned around earlier because the three strangers hadn’t looked very welcoming and they didn’t want any trouble, but then their car had broken down and they’d ended up back there anyway.

The demons acted suspicious, but only for a short time. Eventually, they welcomed them and offered shelter for the night, and when the woman tried to take Sam along to her room, he let himself be talked into it after only a short act of hesitation.

It took Castiel a surprising amount of willpower not to go after them.

But Sam could handle himself. He returned after eight and a half minutes and Castiel could sense the power in him even though there was no trace of blood around his mouth or on his hands.

The other two demons, who’d been trying to inconspicuously manoeuvre Castiel into a corner, were clueless. Sam managed to draw one of them out before they really understood what was going on and held the other still and trapped inside its host while he sliced open the creature’s arm and caught the blood inside an empty plastic bottle. Only then did he force the demon out of the man it was possessing.

The man collapsed face first at Castiel’s feet, like a puppet with cut strings. He was dead, and so was the other one. “The woman?” Castiel asked.

“Shaken, but mostly okay. I told her to stay calm until we come get her.”

 

-

 

They did, in the end, save no one that day. Back in the bedroom they found only the corpse of the young woman Sam had left there, the blood from the cut Sam had inflicted on her arm already dried, the blood flowing from her neck not yet stilled. Whether it was the horror of what the demon had done in her body, the violation the possession had inflicted on her or the hopelessness she found in the ruined world outside the window that had made her slice her own throat they would never know.

Sam and Castiel buried all three under a pile of rubble outside when they couldn’t find a spot of earth large enough for a grave. It was a waste of time, but Sam insisted on it.

 

 

-

 

They met one more living person before they left the city behind. It was an elderly man who came storming out of a house as they walked down the street. He was thin, his dirty clothes hanging off his body in a way that made clear he’d lost a lot of weight lately, and he looked pale and haunted. He was also wielding a shotgun and yelling at them not to come any closer. When they didn’t turn around immediately, he shot at them. Fortunately, his aim wasn’t very good.

They left him behind and found a way around his street. When it got dark, they found shelter in a three-storey apartment building. In two rooms they found corpses – one man, two children, all having died of causes not immediately apparent – but most places were simply empty. Even Castiel had no idea where the majority of the people in this place had gone.

Perhaps some radio transmission had promised shelter somewhere else. Sam found a radio with working batteries in the apartment under the roof, but a scan of the frequencies produced only static.

A quick search had them find a few cans of food which they packed in their half-empty back-packs, and a lot of meat and vegetables rotting in dead refrigerators. They found an empty bedroom on the third floor, ate from the cans, and found restless sleep in a king-sized bed with the neatly folded sheets.

 

-

 

As usual, Sam didn’t get much rest. Instead of Lucifer or nightmares it was nausea that woke him this time, not long after midnight. Castiel knew it was the withdrawal setting in again and that there was little he could do to help, but he stayed awake anyway while Sam’s body was wracked by cramps and shivers. He dabbed the sweat off his friend’s skin before he could catch a cold on top of everything else.

Around two in the morning, he fetched the bottle with the demon blood from Sam’s backpack, screwed it open and offered it to Sam. “Drink.”

Sam eyed the bottle with a mix of horror and painful need. “Take that away.”

“Drink it, Sam. We have enough, and there’s no point in you going through this.”

“No.” Sam’s voice was strained. “I won’t, unless I absolutely have to.”

He would do it because he needed to, but never because he wanted to. Castiel knew this, but he had trouble actually understanding the reasoning, and right now Sam didn’t seem to be in any condition to explain.

So Castiel tied to make Sam understand something he appeared to be missing: “We can’t stay here much longer and your withdrawal is going to take you out of commission for too long. It’s unnecessary, which makes it a waste of time. Drink.” Then he added, because he was suddenly certain that it factored in Sam’s refusal, “Dean doesn’t care.”

But Sam continued to refuse. By dawn, he was hallucinating. By the time the day had gotten  as bright as it would with layers of dust from the attack weeks ago still filling the sky, he was throwing furniture around with his mind and forcing Castiel to hide in another room.

When Sam fell quiet for a while and Castiel went back to him with a damp cloth and the bottle of blood, determined to make him drink, Sam awaited him half-propped against the wall, his eyes unnaturally bright, but clear.

“The knife,” he said.

Castiel didn’t understand. “The knife?”

“The one you’re carrying. Use it.”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“I’ll come back all better. You’re right, this is a waste of t-time.” Sam’s voice was shaking, his hands twitching. Castiel drew the knife from his belt, but he still hesitated.

“Hurry up,” Sam gasped. “I can’t… Ah.” His back arched and something fell off a far wall.

The outbursts of Sam’s powers would call attention to them eventually. Sam was right: things would be easier this way. It would also spare him unnecessary suffering.

It still felt wrong when Castiel plunged the blade into Sam’s heart.

 

-

 

While Sam was gone, Castiel collected their bags and went to check the building’s garage for a working car. He was lucky: there were only two cars down there, and while one was nearly empty, the tank of the large SUV was more than half full.

By the time he got back, Sam was alive again and giving him a shaky smile in greeting. Castiel led him down to the garage, half-supporting his weight and not liking his unsteadiness. In the garage, Sam made Castiel use their can to get the gas from the SUV to the smaller car, explaining that it would need less and get them further. While Castiel was busy, Sam went to look for a way to get the garage door open and collapsed right beside it.

The electronics were dead, but there was a way to manually open the gate. Castiel didn’t do that instead he carried Sam back to the room they had stayed in, no longer able to ignore that his death had done little to help him get over the detox. In the end it was another day before Sam was calm enough to be on the road again, and even then Castiel only left because he thought it unsafe to linger any longer.

He drove into the dusky twilight at noon with Sam moaning softly in the back, wondering if the future would seem any less hopeless if the sun were shining.

 

-

 

The next city they found had been large, but it was mostly gone now. There was not even a crater left like in Sioux Falls; the buildings had simply been levelled.

Castiel found a way around it, sometimes having to drive over grass and sand where the road was blocked or damaged. Eventually the destruction ended and they found intact streets and houses in the outer parts of the city that trailed towards the next town. Castiel avoided them, too, expecting survivors and not trusting them not to steal their car.

The gas was more than half gone when he found a farmhouse that looked like it had been abandoned long ago and got Sam inside to rest for the night. Sam was only half-conscious and so weak that Castiel had to carry him again. It hadn’t been a problem before, even though Sam was bigger than Castiel’s vessel.  It was just as easy this time, despite Castiel’s own exhaustion and slow physical decline. Until now Castiel had not paid attention to how little Sam was eating and how quickly he was losing weight. Something had to be done about that.

 

-

 

The next day, Sam was better but still shaky and weak and feeling too sick to eat. When Castiel brought up the topic of more nutritional intake, even though it was in an ‘In General’ rather than a ‘Right Now’ sense, Sam actually shook his head and told him in all seriousness that too much food would be wasted on him. “I can’t die.”

“You can. You did. You come back but you can still starve.”

“And then I‘d come back.”

“Just to die again because being dead doesn’t feed you.”

“We don’t know that. Lucifer removes whatever killed me when he brings me back, so it might actually work.”

“You have a fever, Sam. You are usually too intelligent to make a suggestion like this.”

Sam did have a fever, but he was also painfully pragmatic, to the point where he might honestly come up with ideas like this. So Castiel tried to appeal to his pragmatism when he added, “Starvation takes time and you’d be weak and useless long before. We do have a mission, or had you forgotten?” For the first time he feared that Sam might have given up in the face of the hopelessness of all their options. But Sam hadn’t. He went on to explain to Castiel how he didn’t actually intend to starve to death, but their supplies were limited and hunger would make them weak and sluggish and prone to illness and more easily killed, and therefore Sam would leave most of the food for Castiel because Castiel needed it now, and other than Sam he would stay dead if he died. It made a twisted sort of sense, and yet Castiel felt the need to somehow make Sam stop talking because it was ridiculous. Fortunately, Sam eventually fell asleep, and when he woke up, he was too shaken by his nightmares to continue their discussion. When Castiel gave him food, he ate.

But after one very small can of tuna, Sam claimed that he was stuffed and refused to eat any more.

 

-

 

Wind had come up, just strong enough to cause the dirt, bone-dry from weeks without rain, to whirl up and make it hard to see very far. They drove slowly, the road covered in dust and hard to make out. The light was rapidly fading as the dust that filled the sky got even thicker. Castiel knew for a fact that it was only afternoon.

“How long until we can see the sky again?” Sam wondered. He was driving, because even suffering the after-effects of his detox he was better at it than Castiel.

“I don’t know. It might be months. Maybe years.”

Sam said nothing in return, focusing on the road. They were aiming for a town about a mile away, because Sam wanted to check for survivors and they needed more gas. After a while, Castiel said, “You will need your strength soon. Try to get it back. Eat more.”

Without looking away from the road, Sam rolled his eyes. “What for?”

“I have finally been able to recall a spell that will summon the archangel Michael.”

Sam stilled for a moment, but he didn’t stop driving and didn’t turn to look at his friend. Castiel was glad; he feared that the lie would be too visible on his face: he hadn’t just recalled the spell; he had known it all along. He’d just not seen the point of using it.

He wasn’t sure there was a point now.

“That’s… good,” Sam finally replied, carefully. “Do you also know a spell to drive him out of his vessel?”

“No,” Castiel admitted. “The only hope is that you can reach Dean somehow, to make him reject Michael. It might work.” It probably wouldn’t.

“I can’t reach Dean,” Sam said as if to deliberately shatter Castiel’s hope. “Michael is keeping him too far under to see anything that’s happening around him.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. It’s got something to do with Dean’s conditions for saying yes.”

“Did he ask for it?” Castiel felt disappointment, but no surprise.

“No, he’s…” Sam shook his head. “Look, Dean made Michael promise something and Michael didn’t keep that promise. If he’d let Dean see, Dean would know Michael lied to him. I just don’t think Michael would allow that.”

So maybe Dean had asked Michael to go after Lucifer but spare the world. It would have made sense for Castiel’s friend to want that, maybe so much that he would have sacrificed himself to make it happen. Castiel knew Dean had somehow felt responsible for the apocalypse, and considering his increasing desperation perhaps he had reached the point where saying yes on this condition had seemed like a good idea.

It would mean that he had not simply given up, had not, in fact, betrayed them and everything Castiel had fallen for. Castiel’s heartbeat picked up inexplicably at the thought and he tried to ignore the fact that Dean wasn’t naïve enough to believe Michael would actually keep a promise like that.

“You might be able to reach him anyway. It’s not certain, though, and it depends on Dean. He’d have to be willing to be reached.” And even that might not have been enough. Their chances were more than slim, but if Dean had indeed been betrayed by Michael… “It’s up to you if you want to try.”

“I see.” Sam carefully steered the car around a deep crack in the road. “What would we need?”

“Holy oil,” Castiel replied. They did have a flask of that – Bobby had insisted they take it. “Blood of a demon and a human. Silver, lead and brimstone. Utah.”

“Why Utah?”

“It is the right size.”

“I guess in that case, it kind of depends on whether or not we find enough gas to get us there,” Sam noted dryly.

“So you want to do it?”

“Let’s look for gas first,” Sam said vaguely. “Then we’ll see.”

It was a good enough answer. Castiel wasn’t sure he wanted to try it either.

He never asked exactly what price it was that Dean had demanded for his consent.

 

-

 

They didn’t find gas in the town; what had been left had long since been used up by the survivors they found instead. This time, there was no demon amongst them, but the people – barely a hundred  in number – had seen other things they couldn’t explain, and more than one said they’d seen a stranger change shape before their eyes in the days after the power went out and the first towns were blasted off the map. They were very suspicious of Sam and Castiel and Castiel didn’t want to stop and deal with them, but Sam ignored the risk after hearing their stories and decided to stay the night so he could teach them the most important things about demons and other monsters and how to fight them or keep them away. “I wish we had pamphlets to hand out,” he muttered at some point, so quiet only Castiel could hear, and the angel had to agree. The knowledge was important, but telling it to all these people took time.

At least Sam was too polite to turn down the meal they were offered and actually ate his fair share. He managed to win the people’s cautious trust, though Castiel could not tell how. Even so, someone around them was always carrying a gun.

The reason became clear the next morning. Castiel had slept some but Sam stayed awake all night, not trusting the strangers enough to let his guard down completely, but also because he didn’t want to disturb them with his nightmares. He would sleep in the car when only Castiel was around.

The suspicion of the others had been strengthened by his refusal to sleep, though, and eventually Sam found out that everyone who’d seen that stranger change shape before them had witnessed the change only after the man had fallen asleep.

A few questions finally brought clarity: the small community was hunted by a werewolf. After everything that had happened, it hardly seemed to matter.

At least that was what Castiel thought. Sam thought it was a good idea to promise he’d take the monster down.

“We can’t just leave these people to their fate,” he defended his decision later, after they had left for the hunt. “They said it had taken three of them last month, and two already this month.”

It was just their luck that they’d ended up there on a full moon. The werewolf would be susceptible to it for another night, and Castiel sighed when Sam wouldn’t be deterred from his decision to take it out, even when the traces they found led away from the town into the forest nearby. Chances were the wolf was moving on and bothering these people no longer, but that didn’t stop Sam. “It’s just going to go after someone else.”

And he was right. That didn’t mean this wasn’t a secondary problem. Being safe from werewolves was meaningless if they weren’t safe from the apocalypse, Castiel told Sam. Being safe from the apocalypse was meaningless if they were eaten by werewolves, Sam replied. He didn’t stop, so Castiel had no chance but to follow.

It had gotten dark, but Castiel’s night vision was still excellent and after Sam told him what to look out for, he easily followed the werewolf’s trail. It was from the previous night when he had been in his wolf-shape. Apparently the fact that all actual moonlight was blocked by the dust in the atmosphere had no effect on the transformation.

Between the two of them, Castiel and Sam had only one gun loaded with silver bullets and Sam gave it to Castiel, since he would probably not transform if bitten and would come back if killed. It shouldn’t have mattered, since they had no intention of splitting up, but when they heard a shrill scream ringing through the night, Sam had started sprinting towards it and Castiel had had a hard time keeping up, not used to moving a human body through branches and trunks at such speed.

They ended up at a cabin in a small clearing, one window lit by a candle and shapes moving behind the glass. Castiel arrived just seconds after Sam, but the moment his friend kicked in the door something slammed into Castiel from the side and knocked him off his feet.

The thing, heavy and panting, had landed on his back, keeping him from getting upright, and a low, aggressive growl rang in his ear. Castiel wanted to call for Sam, but already he could hear the sounds of fighting from inside the cabin, Sam’s slightly hoarse voice mingling with a shrill, female one and the growls of a werewolf – and Castiel knew that there could be no help coming from that side. If anything, his call would distract Sam at a crucial moment and get him killed.

And in the end he didn’t even need help. After the initial surprise, he was able to identify the weight on him, by sound and smell, as a large but entirely normal dog. A dog that was aggressive, that considered him a threat and would have been a serious danger to any normal human, but Castiel, with his inhuman reflexes and strength, could easily wrestle it down while keeping its jaws from closing around his throat.

Just a minute after Castiel was attacked, the dog was lying motionless beneath them – either knocked out or dead, Castiel couldn’t tell. The important point was that it no longer trying to kill him.

Castiel didn’t waste any more time on the animal. He picked up the gun he had dropped and ran towards the cabin, but when he got there, everything was already almost over.

Sam was standing in the middle of the room, between the entrance and a small kitchen. His hand was raised, his eyes narrowed in concentration and effort. Behind him, a girl – long hair, dark skin, no older than twelve – was covering her eyes, dark and wide in an ashen face. Opposite him, an unusually large werewolf was pinned to the wall, kept there by Sam’s psychic powers.

“Cas,” Sam forced out between gritted teeth. “Shoot him!”

Of course. Sam’s powers could disable the werewolf, but they couldn’t replace silver bullets, which short of complete mutilation were the only thing that could kill these creatures. Castiel aimed carefully, still not used to the firearms of mortals, and fired a single shot, right into the monster’s heart.

Sam let go the moment the werewolf went limp. The monster slumped to the floor, already dead.  It lay in a heap, the shape of a human; a man with torn clothes and a bearded face.

Castiel found himself staring. He had known that werewolves retuned to their human form in death, but watching it happen, seeing all traces of the monster disappear to leave only the human behind, was a strangely eerie experience.

Beside him, Sam looked at the man with an unreadable expression on his face. He stood still for a long time before he turned to the girl and asked her if she was okay.

 

-

 

The girl was shaken and not particularly helpful, but eventually stopped trying to crawl into Sam’s chest and calmed down some. Sam spend a few minutes talking to her while Castiel checked on the dog to make sure they would not be attacked again and then waited impatiently for the others so they could return to the town and drop off the girl.

As it turned out, though, the girl wasn’t from the town but from the one they had passed before, the one Castiel had avoided while Sam was suffering the consequences of drinking demon blood. The same consequences he was facing again now, after barely a break, because he had drunk blood to fight the werewolf – and for what? They were no closer to getting Dean back or fighting Lucifer than before.

In the light of that, it was understandable, Castiel thought, that he was a little frustrated and irritated when they made their way back to the car with the girl and the dog that wasn’t dead and apparently belonged to her, only for Sam to promise that of course they would take her back to her hometown to see if her mother or her grandparents were still around.

“This is pointless,” Castiel hissed sixteen minutes into the drive. “We have more important things to do than babysitting this child.” He kept his voice down because the child had fallen asleep on the backseat, her arms wrapped around her dog, and he didn’t want her to wake up and interrupt their conversation.

“Like what?” Sam asked, challenge in his voice. “What’s the point of saving the planet if there’s no one living on it?”

“It might have escaped your notice, but you cannot save every single person from every single danger.”

“But we can save the ones we can.”

“It’s a waste of time. If we stop Lucifer and Michael, we wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of their apocalypse. It would save people far more effectively.”

“I’d generally agree with you, but as it happens we don’t exactly have a plan, or much of a chance to do anything at all. All we have is an idea that will probably get us killed.”

“Get _me_ killed,” Castiel corrected. “You will come back. Though Michael might make use of the opportunity and hand you over to his brother, or take it on himself to torture you into giving consent.”

Sam was silent for a beat, then he said, “You kind of support my point here.” He licked his dry lips. “If we try to summon Michael, it will end with you dead and me saying yes to Lucifer. How is that helping?”

“It is still worth the try. And if we fail… No, not the right word.  We _will_ likely fail, but even then things will simply be the way they are meant to be. You will say yes, eventually, and I will cease to exist – I’m not even meant to be alive. It is better to try and fail than struggle to postpone the inevitable.”

Sam snorted, a soft and bitter sound. “You sound a lot like Dean right now.”

“Maybe Dean had the right idea.” Castiel hated saying that, and his anger and disappointment had not lessened, but he had begun to understand how much it must have worn on Dean to fight a fight that was hopeless.

“You think we have no chance and that I’m eventually going to damn everyone,” Sam summed up. “You could just go and try to save yourself, then. If there’s no point in fighting, there’s no reason for you to stay with me. In fact, it’s the best way to get yourself killed. And yet you dragged me along even when I was detoxing and useless and just slowing you down and eating your food.”

“You did not eat my food. We’ve had an argument about that.”

“Not my point. You could have left me behind and there’s no good reason why you didn‘t.”

It wasn’t true, of course, and Sam ought to know that. Sam was useful, and crucial, and needed, and Castiel didn’t want him to come to harm, as he had found much to his own surprise. Leaving him behind had never been an option.

Beside that, Castiel knew him. He did not know any of these other people, and neither did Sam, so as they drove through the dim light of early morning – the sky just beginning to show first traces of its now familiar orangey-brown- – Castiel didn’t understand why he was the one who had to explain his viewpoints.

“You’re Sam,” he therefore only said. It was the shortest way he could express his thoughts.

“And that girl is Lorna,” Sam replied, as if Castiel should care. “She’s eleven and was in that cabin with her dad when everything went to hell. He had made a trip to the city that day and didn’t come back. Since then she lived off the food they had stored and things she found in the forest, hoping someone would come to get her.”

Castile shifted uncomfortably, glancing into the rear-view mirror and at the sleeping child. “Why are you telling me that?”

“Let’s go to Utah. It’s probably gonna end in disaster, but we can’t not try.”

“Sam.” Castiel grinded his teeth. “Why did you tell me about that girl?”

Sam sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I hope you’ll figure it out eventually.”

Castiel was not interested. He stared out of the window sullenly, thinking about the gas they would need, the food, the fact that he didn’t know what he would do if he should still be alive after Sam had said yes.

It was a very long time – month and years and many failed plans away – before he understood why the girl’s story was important, and why Sam wanted him to know.

 

 

September 12, 2012


End file.
